As l have told you before; my nephews Bill and Bob love doing scientific experiments. Their school teacher, Miss Pringle, set them a task last weekend where they had to go out into the garden and list all the wild creatures they could see. Then they had to find out more about one of them.

They found a slow worm in the compost heap which made them jump! A slow worm looks like a snake but is actually a legless lizard.

But although they thought it was pretty cool, they decided in the end to do their report on ants.

Ants are really tiny creatures but they are interesting to study. This is their report…

‘Ants live in groups called colonies. There can be thousands of ants living in a colony. Ants are found all over the World and can grow up to about 3cm in some places. They build their nests on or under the ground or even sometimes in trees.

Each colony has a queen and it is she that lays all the eggs that the baby ants come from.

Worker ants look after the eggs as they grow. The eggs turn into larvae and then cocoons from which the ants hatch. Worker ants collect food for the whole colony.

You can watch ants carrying pieces of food and building materials that are much bigger than they are. ln fact, ants can pull things 300 times heavier than themselves and lift things 20 times their own weight!

There are also soldier ants and these ants guard the nest. Workers and soldiers are all girls. The boys are called drones.

Ants work really hard together to make the colony a success. The nests are well-organized; they even have refuse chambers where they store waste material. A little bit like ant dustbins!

And ants in other countries do even more spectacular things.

For example, the South American Fire Ant will attack prey many times bigger than they are, and if their nest is flooded, they interlock all their bodies together creating a raft that floats across the flood or down the river. ln this way, they save their queen, eggs and larvae, transporting them to a new place.

But these ants have a terrible sting that leaves a burning sensation on the skin of any people they might attack.

lf you want to look at ants, drop a blob of jam in the garden and watch how they find it and form a line going backwards and forwards to the nest. They find their way back by following scent trails and go a long way out to find food. Each colony has its own smell and this is how the ants know how to get back home.

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